


Hands

by Ray_Writes



Series: Tumblr Prompts [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12085434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Every relationship has a few stumbling blocks to overcome in the beginning.





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colorofmymind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmymind/gifts).



> Hello all! Had a couple prompts/oneshot ideas I wanted to get down, though I am of course continuing to work on my multichapter fic, so no worries there. This was a prompt from my lovely beta colorofmymind which allowed me to play around a bit with the early stages of a Doctor/Donna relationship. Hopefully you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Donna had been in enough relationships to have a general pessimism about them. The men she'd known were often looking for something casual and short-term, and the ones who had been interested in something more permanent tended to either drive her or be driven away once that initial excitement faded and they could see each other in the light of day for who they really were. And that wasn't even taking Lance into account.

She’d been called bossy, pushy, too loud, too fat, too stupid, and everything under the sun. And she'd had her own fair share to say about her exes. Every time she got her hopes up, she always found herself disappointed.

She should have realized it wouldn't be any easier with a Martian.

In truth, her complaint seemed little in the face of everything that  _ was  _ better than her previous relationships. He treated her well, had fun with her, listened to her advice and challenged her in turn, and at the end of the day was the best friend she'd ever had. Donna worried, however, that that was their problem. Maybe they were just too good of friends to have that spark.

She knew she was attracted to him, even if his wit and intelligence and need to do good played just as large a factor as his looks. And she'd caught him staring often enough to be pretty sure there was something about her he liked, and it wasn't just her face! 

It wasn't that he was a bad kisser, either; a man that could make anchovy breath somehow not a deal breaker had to have some skill. But kissing seemed to be all he was capable of.

The first few times, she'd thought he'd just been caught off guard. They were just trying out this relationship thing; they weren't even quite calling it a relationship yet. It was a test run. But every time Donna kissed him, without fail he would sort of stagger forwards and then backwards into the nearest wall or other obstacle and just let her do all the work while his arms hung at his sides. She didn't think he was trying to get away from her. He never asked her to stop, at any rate.

Did he just not want to touch her?

That night, they returned to the TARDIS after a long day spent wandering around the Festival of Twin Lights on Quarn, lightheaded from laughter and wine. Donna tripped in the corridor right into him, and his lips were there and so were hers so that just made sense, didn't it?

There was the expected stumble backwards — he was going to bruise his back one of these days — but his mouth was warm and eager enough against hers. Her hands trailed down his neck and to his shoulders where she pushed at his jacket. At least he’d left the coat off today. Did he have to wear so many layers?

Then Donna felt it; just the slightest brush against her elbow, maybe on the way to her waist. Her breath hitched — but then it was gone, and she heard a  _ thunk _ as something hit some other surface. When she opened her eyes and looked to either side, she discovered he’d braced his hands against the walls that bracketed them.

Donna slowed the movement of her mouth against his, then muttered, “Okay, this is not gonna work.”

The Doctor made a noise that was halfway to puzzled before transforming into alarm as she pulled away. “Donna, what's wrong?”

“What's wrong?” Donna echoed. “Are you joking? Do you see where your arms are right now?”

He glanced to both the left and right of him. “Er, yes?” Slowly, his palms slid down the walls to instead rest at his sides.

“You’ve been keeping them to yourself ever since we started this. Does it just make it easier to imagine some skinny thing’s attached to these?” She gestured to her lips with one hand, noticing the way his eyes darted to them before licking his own.

Then her words seemed to catch up to him. “What?”

Donna turned her face away. It felt too hot, and she was blinking furiously to hold back the tears. Her pride wouldn't allow them in front of him. “Right,” she said, voice not as steady as she'd wanted. She stepped back.

“No, wait, Donna!” He darted forward, hands gripping her shoulders to halt her. He was fine touching her so long as it wasn't explicitly intimate, Donna noted, unless hand-holding counted as intimacy. They had that in spades.

She crossed her arms. This had better be good.

He started off strong, at the least. “I am not picturing someone else when I'm with you. How could I? You're lovely.”

Donna tried not to show how even that tiny bit of earnest praise affected her. He was looking nervous now, anyway, which probably meant he knew she wasn't going to like what he said next.

“It's not even that I don't want to, erm, that is — it's just — I can get it right,” he resorted to promising, eyes wide and pleading.

“Yeah? Well, here's you and me in reaching distance. Let's see what right looks like, Spaceman.”

“Okay. Yeah.” He made little move to actually do anything. His eyes hadn't lost that panic, and she could feel him fiddling with one of her shoulder straps between his thumb and forefinger like a security blanket. “But—”

Donna shrugged him off of her. “But what?”

“But what do I do with my hands?”

They both froze. The Doctor was incredibly pale and seemed about ready to bolt, never mind she was blocking the exit. Donna was positive he hadn't actually meant to say that.

She took a step closer, making him look at her again. “What do you mean?”

The Doctor shrugged helplessly, which had the added effect of righting his suit jacket. “I never know what to do with my hands!”

“What, when someone's kissing you?” Donna demanded.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Blimey, I barely know what to do with my anything. It all just sort of happens, and it's fast, but there's too much to process to have all occurred in that tiny little bit of time. It's like time’s distorting!”

Donna stared, hardly able to believe what he was saying and yet feeling vaguely flattered. Was she really that good?

It didn't last very long. “And I mean, you have always been especially touchy about, well, touching. There's rules on that sort of thing, isn't there? So I just thought, better safe than sorry.”

Donna heard him but just wanted to be sure. “You thought I was gonna slap you if you touched me?”

His eyes were fixed somewhere over her head as he replied carefully, “It has been known to happen.”

“Yeah, when you've startled me, not when I’ve been trying to — when we're — you—” Donna just managed to stop herself. Blurting out  _ you’ve had kids!  _ did not seem like a wise move at the moment. Derail the whole conversation and leave her feeling guilty to boot, that would. “You’ve done this before. Relationships.”

He squirmed a bit under her stare. “Yeah. Course I have. Just not, you know, for a while.”

Donna felt one of her eyebrows raise. “How long?”

“I dunno,” he groaned, tugging at his ear and looking anywhere but at her. “Does it matter?”

“ _ Doctor. _ ”

“Fine.” He blew out a breath, then at last gathered the courage to meet her eyes. “Few centuries?”

Her mouth fell open. “No  _ way _ .”

“Yes way,” he answered shortly. “I’ve been busy. And I’m not exactly some Space Casanova, Donna, I’m almost nine-hundred and four.”

“You don't look it,” she pointed out shrewdly.

“Well,” he said, “people do seem to have been ignoring that lately.”

Donna shook her head. What was she supposed to do with this hopeless Martian?

“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes big and sad and remorseful and getting right at her heart.

“Oh, don't start that.” Great, she was going to end up feeling guilty anyway.

“No, but you’ve every right to want more. Humans typically do; you’re more emotionally open and tactile — which is a good thing. It's something I've learned to admire, even if I don't always know  _ how _ —”

“Then we can work on that,” she offered, laying a hand on his arm.

He scoffed. “Right, because a project was exactly what you were looking for, I’m sure. I know you’ve had...experience, with other men who probably know far better what they're doing. Probably more your type, too,” he muttered.

Oh how long had he been letting that stir? Probably since Gramps had gone on about all her old boyfriends. Donna wondered if the TARDIS had floor-swallowing capabilities and if so how to access them.

Instead, she turned and leaned her weight against their little corner as well. “Considering how well all those experiences have turned out, I’m pretty sure you’ve got nothing to worry about. Though you're flattering yourself if you didn't think you were already a project.”

She saw the corners of his mouth twitch and knew he was struggling to hold on to his self-pitying mood. Donna wasn't having it.

“You could have just told me. Least I wouldn't have been worrying about being the latest in some long line of conquests you forget about after.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, angling his body in towards her. “Conquests, seriously? Who’ve you been talking to?”

“I dunno,” she sighed. “Suppose it doesn't really matter, not when we should've been talking to each other.”

“Correct as usual.” He looked down. “I do want this to work, Donna. I just didn't want to disappoint you. This is all a bit unfamiliar ground to me.”

He really didn't have a clue, did he? How much even an admission like this set him apart from so many of the men she'd known and wasted years on. When was the last time a failed relationship had been anything other than her fault?

But this relationship wasn't going to fail. Not if she had something to say about it.

“Well, I may not have been looking for a project — but I was looking for you,” Donna said softly. When he chanced to glance up at her, she smiled. “Anyway, I seem to recall somebody saying they're a quick learner a time or two.”

“Yes,” he agreed slowly, clearly trying to figure out where she was going with this.

Donna pushed off the wall to face him fully again. “So what do you say I give you the crash course?”

His lips turned up in a grin of his own. “Have I told you you're brilliant lately?”

“Only every day,” Donna replied with an eye roll. Honestly, this was what she was talking about; here she was trying to seduce him, and he was getting sentimental on her.

Donna not-so-surreptitiously adjusted the straps of the sundress she'd worn for the festival, which both distracted him and got them back on track. She stepped into his personal space again and watched his throat work as he swallowed, and it was impossible to deny a spark now.

“Right then, Doctor, rule one,” she intoned, voice pitched a bit lower than usual. She kept her head ducked slightly in order to look up at him through her eyelashes. Maybe this wasn't an emergency, but she'd saved her wiles for long enough. “When a woman you just took out on a date — or anytime, really — pulls you aside for a snog...”

They were practically sharing the same air now, and his eyes were starting to fall closed as he tilted his head down towards hers, but Donna had a job to do. She splayed both hands against his chest, effectively stilling him.

“...and that snog involves her putting her hands wherever she likes…”

His hearts were pounding, and when she trailed just the tips of her fingers over the fabric of his shirt she felt as well as heard him suck in a breath. There was an unexpected thrill to all this, being the one in control and setting the pace. She could learn to like it, at least for however long it took him to play catch up.

Donna decided she'd teased him enough and stopped what she was doing to make sure he actually got this part. “When that happens, generally speaking, a little reciprocation wouldn't go amiss. Think you can do that, Spaceman?”

It took him a beat to respond, and when he did it was with a squeaky, “Yep!” His eyes squeezed shut, and he tried again with a more normal pitched, “I mean, yes. Yes, I can do—”

Donna pressed forward to kiss him before a full-on ramble could get underway, and when his hands caught her about the waist, she smiled against his lips. Maybe there was hope for her and relationships after all.

**Author's Note:**

> As a fun tidbit, part of the Doctor's nerves over touching Donna was inspired by [this different angle](https://raywritesthings.tumblr.com/post/164778756262/winterrosie-thenoblelark-look-at-how-he-goes) of the "The Unicorn and the Wasp" kiss where you can see the Doctor going to hold Donna before chickening out which I find hilarious and adorable.
> 
> Feel free to visit the ask box of my tumblr (which is where the above link directs to) for requests/prompts. Thanks again for reading!


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